In case you didn't notice, the pound just went down the toilet. A ton of GBP is not worth all that much suddenly.
And as you say - the English need the foreign booze, so low tariffs are in their interest. The French don't want or need IPA or scrumpy, so they don't mind tariff barriers so much.
I came to HN for a reasoned and sensible discussion of Brexit, and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt.
You are saying that France can easily impose import tariffs against the UK with no repercussions because the UK wants wine but doesn't need cider in return. This is the worst game of Civ ever played.
France has 3 big car manufacturers, Citroen, Renault and Peugeot. They sell lots of these small cars in the UK. Many Britons holiday in France (and own property there). The French economy doesn't want to take a hit on manufacturing, exports and property prices as well as tourist francs (remember those?).
Imposing tariffs on the UK would be a disaster for the French economy. It isn't going to happen. European manufacturing tariffs would be akin to routing a percentage of all trade out of Europe and into Asia.
Well, is a little more complicated than this. The group PSA (owner of peugeot and citroen) is not exclusively French anymore. After the low sales in the austericide years was rescued by Chinese investors (Dongfeng motor corporation). The Peugeot family has lost the full control of their companies by first time in 200 years.
And if someone wonder why EU didn't just try to do something to help those european companies that employ thousands of european people... Because Germany motor companies pushed hard against.
In case you didn't notice, the pound just went down the toilet. A ton of GBP is not worth all that much suddenly.
If by "down the toilet" you mean back to February 2016 or early 2009 levels. It's hardly way off recent historical lows. If we see £/$ parity, then we might have an issue.
In case you didn't notice, the pound just went down the toilet. A ton of GBP is not worth all that much suddenly.
And as you say - the English need the foreign booze, so low tariffs are in their interest. The French don't want or need IPA or scrumpy, so they don't mind tariff barriers so much.